To Contact Us, Please Click Here For Our Enquiry / Inquiry Page
Please ensure you read this page in full as it contains your cancellation rights if and when you place an order. No matter where you are in the world, we make buying hassle free (also see: packing / shipping).
Please Note: Any and all information including any provenance / research etc. is stated on each item page; we can not add to it.
What you see and read is what you get (nothing else is included).
We are unable to take additional photos as all items are packed / boxed and in secure storage (hence the box / tube / package numbers) ready to be shipped.
We buy from private sellers to auctions but do not provide details of where as they get upset with us if our customers contact them.
The best way to contact us (and the method we prefer) to enquire / inquire about buying a sword or other edged weapon shown on this site (or if you want to contact us regarding offering us a sword), is to do so by using the contact us form.
If you have problems with the Contact Us form, you can email us but you will have to type out the email address manually (we avoid publishing it as commercial spam bots will find it). Here is a photograph of that email address (you can not click it, you have to type it out yourself);
It is, however, quicker to use our Contact Us Form (the above email address is a general one for non-urgent general use – sending us an email directly likely will cause delay in our response).
Please ensure that you quote the item reference numbers if you are looking to buy!
Additional / Full Sized Photos
We can provide you with further / full sized photos we hold on file to help you decide; all photos are Copyright and can not be used elsewhere without our explicit permission. If you want us to take additional photos, there may be a charge for this and expect a delay as all items are originally photographed, then packed, then placed into our secure humidity controlled storage facility, so taking additional photos means we have to unpack and repack the item(s).
Documentation / Provenance / Proof / Certifications
Please read this.
Condition / Hidden Repairs / Damage
We hope to list all reasonable condition areas on the item pages, but we do not guarantee this, which is why we provide full sized / additional photos. We can and will not be held liable / accountable for any condition issues declared on the item page and / or in the photos. We can and will not be held liable / accountable for hidden damage, repairs, etc. Be aware, some swords were made with what some people retrospectively describe as “damage”; for example, the end of naval scabbard leather is normally irregular (this is irrelevant as the leather was glued into the scabbard chape / drag, but the glue does give way in time and exposes the irregular leather end). Plus, if you do not think a sword feels right, perhaps you should invent a time machine, go back in time and tell the maker! We hardly ever get related issues; in fact, most customers tell us our descriptions and photos do not do the items justice. But, if we are amiss, we will of course work with you to resolve it and you do have “not as described” return rights (see further below).
UK Buyers: The UK Offensive Weapon Act 2019
All items sold on this site are for historical re-enactment purposes only, thus being exempt under the above Act clause 40, paragraph 6. All UK buyers hereby confirm that they will, upon receipt of their purchases from us, historically re-enact with said items (thereafter, being free just to simply own, collect and safely / lawfully enjoy the items). If you think the above Act is a horse’s ass like we do, wait until you read this: The unlawful BS UK Offensive Weapons Bill – Parliament / Home Office Evidence Ignored by the Government Panel that came up with this law.
Non-UK Buyers:
We are able to export / send all of out items out of the UK
However, it is a non-UK buyer’s ultimate responsibility / liability to check whether they are allowed to import any item and also what if any Duty / taxes maybe chargeable to them. We have never had an item blocked but it could happen.
The US is fine with our items (as long as an item does not contain ivory or rhino horn) but may charge Customs clearance fees on anything declared over £560. The various regions of Canada have been known to charge sales tax. Australia tends to be very laid back about everything but, technically, knives and bayonets officially need police permits (though bizarrely not swords). While sending to NZ is OK but New Zealanders have issues sending out of their country! Some countries such as the Netherlands and Italy do not allow the importation of any weapon, no matter how old, unless with an import permit; whether they check is another matter. Other countries allow importation but are mired in bureaucratic nay saying by Customs officers (e.g. Portugal) and / or allow their national postal services to decide (e.g. Spain). Some countries prohibit Nazi items (such as France, Germany and Italy).
Unfortunately there is no central resource we can refer you to; we can only tell you about past experiences with any given country. We will assume non-UK buyers have checked with their own Customs regarding importation unless they ask us, or unless we have specific previous experience of issues relating to a buyer’s country.
EU Buyers & Buyers Outside The UK, US, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Hong Kong, Singapore and Norway.
If you want to buy something from us, we can put you in touch with a low cost courier comparison / ordering site. We do not expect any issues when EU citizens buy from us and organize their own shipping (but you ultimately need to check with your country’s Customs). EU VAT / Sales Tax & Duty Rules.
If you require us to ship, we have to ask you to confirm that you are responsible for any / all importation Customs clearances and any duties / taxes. We will do our part by providing the correct documentation. We also will accept items back (if refused) (for us to refund) for a nominal £20 repacking fee (plus any PayPal charges), providing the item gets returned to us in the same condition as it was sent and within 30 days of our dispatch.
Canadian & Norwegian Buyers
We are aware that sometimes buyers in Canada and Norway have been required to pay local sales taxes on items we have sent them.
Ivory / CITES: We register all items with ivory content as required by UK law and may therefore legally sell them to you.
General
Please make sure you read our Packing & Shipping page regarding shipping costs, optional insurance, Customs, etc.
Selling a sword / looking to trade in? Please click here to go to our Buying page.
Valuation / ID enquiries: Please visit the sword identifications & valuations page.
Please note: We do not sell sword parts such as scabbards or provide sword refurbishment services, sorry.
Pricing
We list our items for sale in GBP (£ / British Pounds Sterling) because we buy 98% of our swords in the UK in GBP, so we need to price in GBP to insure against currency fluctuations. However, we are able to convert these prices of course to € Euros and $ Dollars according to your preferences.
Payment Methods
We accept bank transfers / bank deposits, PayPal, UK cheques and Western Union only.
Paying by UK to UK Direct Bank Payments (CHAPS) / IBAN (EU to EU bank transfers)
There are no surcharges for IBAN / UK bank transfer payments. Payments by customers in the UK / Eurozone can be made in Euros instead of GBP. Not only do we avoid charges with this payment method, but so should / do you the customer.
Paying by PayPal
We do not have a surcharge for payments by PayPal.
Due to PayPal’s seller protection rules, We normally will only ship to the account holder’s address on file with PayPal unless the buyer is a repeat customer.
PayPal is useful if you are outside the EU, as i) PayPal charge you in your local currency, and ii) paying by International bank transfer often attracts higher charges.
Paying by International bank transfer from outside the EU
Payments are to be sent “all charges paid”. However, due to the fact “all charges paid” does not cover the charges we incur at our receiving bank, we have a surcharge of £6 / €7 / $9 for this payment method. Payments can be made in GBP, USD, AUD or Euros.
Western Union
There are no surcharges for Western Union payments. We will probably require Western Union payments in Euros however, so first the exchange rate has to be agreed.
UK Cheques
We will accept UK cheques and do not charge extra for this.
Lay Away
We are happy to provide a lay-away service; 30% deposit (minimum), balance payable as a single payment within three months please. Please note: If you do not pay the balance before time, we have the right to cancel the layaway and retain any monies paid. Please note: Once you have paid the deposit, it is not possible to switch the layaway to another item. Layaways can not be cancelled and refunded, only cancelled (the deposit is forfeited). If you do not pay in full by the end of the three months, the item will become available for sale to others and what you have already paid may be forfeited at our sole discretion. Please note: if you pay the balance in part payments, we will charge £30 per part payment for the extra book keeping and other time incurred by us.
Certificates
All items sold are put into our archives and sold items sections marked as sold with the price removed. We also make a site wide guarantee that all items are authentic / as described. We recommend buyers simply print up the item page for their records, if this is what they need. We believe most if not all dealers who provide certificates are playing a game, because the certificates we have seen do not give money back guarantees and are therefore not worth the paper they are written on. Whereas our site does provide a money back guarantee. We view most certificates as being a vehicle to increase pricing. We do not generally provide certificates for these reasons. We can, but will need to charge you £10 per certificate.
Sword Location / Shipping Days
The swords we offer are in the UK or sometimes from Spain; we will inform you if an item is not currently in the UK and offer to have it returned to the UK before shipping to you if you prefer! We generally ship the following working day after payment receipt, but please be patient with us if we require an extra day, and please allow for public holidays.
Shipping Times
UK: Next Day
Europe Zone 1: Express is normally 3 working days, economy is normally 7 working days.
Europe Zone 2: Express is normally 5 working days, economy is normally 9 working days.
USA / Canada: UPS is normally 7 working days, regular is normally 9 to 12 working days, economy is normally 14 to 21 working days.
Aussie / NZ: Normally 7 to 10 working days.
All services are registered delivery.
Europe Zone 1 is (Austria, Belgium, Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Holland, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Norway, Slovenia, Slovakia, Spain, Switzerland, Sweden).
Europe Zone 2 is generally anything not inside Zone 1 excluding the Ukraine and Eastern European countries in the Russian Federation (please note: we do not ship to Russian Federation / Eastern European countries that are not in the EU).
UPS delivery times; please inquire / enquire.
Please see our packing and shipping page for full details
Discounts
We are sometimes asked for a discount. Generally we do not discount for new customers, though you are welcome to ask (just expect us to say “No” though and be pleasantly surprised if we say “Yes”). We do however offer a discount for repeat customers. Repeat customers receive a 10% discount on additional items up to the value of previous non-discounted orders; this means if you buy / have only bought a bayonet from us for £100 and then ask for a discount on a £1000 sword, we will only be able to offer 10% of £100. We also offer a 10% discount to serving officers of any NATO country, and also to those serving in the Australian or New Zealand armed forces.
Quoted Prices
Prices quoted on this web site or sent by us by email shall remain valid for 24 hours only. Requests for purchases after said 24 hours shall be subject to revision. Prices quoted on this web site / by email may be withdrawn at any time without notice if either a) the item has been sold to someone else, or b) if there was an error in that pricing. Prices include all applicable sales taxes.
Cancellation / return / refund
Please see further above for instances when and if your local Customs refuse entry.
All customers except traders and layaway customers have the right to cancel for a full refund prior to our booking the item(s) with the courier. All customers except traders and layaway have the right to return an item within two weeks of receipt for a full refund (plus their reasonable shipping costs back to us) if the item is not as described / depicted in the photographs, or receive an appropriate / commensurate retrospective discount thereof (only when mutually agreed). If the item is as described / photographed, customers (except traders) still have the right to return for a refund for any reason upon receipt (14 days if in the UK) but only for the item cost excluding shipping and any fees we incurred (plus 15% to 30% restocking fee, actual percentage depending on the item and circumstances, if coming from outside the UK).
PayPal customers: PayPal charge us a fee to process your payment. If you pay by PayPal and then cancel through no fault of our own, PayPal do not refund those fees if we refund you. Therefore, we have every right to and will only refund such PayPal payments LESS the PayPal fee to us; don’t like it, then complaint to PayPal please, not us.
UK Customers also benefit from so called Distance Selling Rules giving them up to 14 days to cancel from the date of delivery to them.
Sorry but layaway customers have no right to cancel and receive refund except in the UK and within 14 days of the deposit date, unless the item is not as described / photographed upon receipt thereof.
Any insurance element paid in the shipping cost is NOT refundable if the item / items has / have already been shipped / sent. PayPal charge a fee for processing a refund so you may not get all the money back if you paid by PayPal. If you wish to return an item for refund, please contact us by email first and please note; we must advise a returns number and the returns address prior to any return being sent back. We will not refund any money until we have received the item(s) back and inspected it. We will video record the opening of the package of returned items and then the item itself in one video segment in case of any damage to the item(s). The buyer is responsible returning the item(s) to us in exactly the same condition as they received them. If there is any damage, the buyer is responsible for this and therefore we recommend any returns are sent insured. Dealers / traders, please see below.
Items that returned to us by the courier due to Customs / addressing issues (these aspects being the customer’s / buyer’s / importer’s responsibility) will be held for up to three months and then disposed of as we see fit (the customer will forfeit them).
Trade / dealer sales: We do not normally get involved in trade / dealer sales, but where we do, these are clearly / obviously NOT covered by our guarantees (including authenticity guarantees) / any consumer legislation. That is, if we sell “trade” the item is as seen; the sale is final, no guarantees, no returns, no refunds.
Your Security / Terms & Conditions
We have sold many swords around the world; we have a customer feedback page here.
You can pay us by bank transfer to our bank account or by PayPal or by Western Union. Bank and PayPal accounts are not easily come by and do they do not tolerate unethical and / or poorly described transactions, so it would not pay us to act in any manner other than exemplary; Yes, we maintain our bank and PayPal accounts in good standing.
We guarantee all of the items for sale here are authentic and as described when you buy from us online, except where we include doubt (“I / we think”, “I / we believe”, etc.). If you buy an item online (including by email) which is not as described from us, we will refund the cost including return shipping as long as the item is in the same condition as it left us; the burden of proof regarding incorrectly described items is with the customer of course. We can only accept returns for refund if notified of an issue within 4 weeks of the date of receipt by you of an item; it may take longer to return the item to us, etc. but you must make a claim within 4 weeks of the delivery of the item to your specified delivery address. If you buy / pay for an item from us and then change your mind, we may take it back and refund if you are honest about the matter; we may require a restocking fee if we do accept an item back in such a scenario.
We try to include condition information in the item descriptions but you should ask specific questions and ask for specific images if in any doubt. Remember, most of the items on this site are antiques that have seen harsh use. We keep the full sized images of the photos on this site on PC’s and are happy to provide these but not for re-use (if you want a photo of a sword for a web site or anything else, please be open and ask up front).
Please do NOT call us asking how much we sold something for; we will not tell you. If you want to know what something you have is, or is worth, please see our valuations page.
PLEASE USE OUR ENQUIRY / INQUIRY FORM SYSTEM TO CONTACT US, we are a web based company and we need to keep records of what is discussed. If you we speak to you on the phone, we will probably only ask you to put your enquiry / inquiry to us in writing by email. We only have phone numbers because we are legally obliged to have these. Again, please use email to contact us.
Our Address / Contact Details:
Please note (no parcels); neither of the below addresses can be used for parcels. If you need to send anything other than documents, please contact us here.
Please note; we are Internet based and use email for all discussions, sales, records, etc. So please use the Contact Us form. The reason we show addresses here is solely for legal purposes (it is a legal requirement), for the authorities to contact us if they need to (not happened yet). Please, only call us if you are a law enforcement agency or for an emergency and are unable to use the contact form. For everything else, please use the Contact Us Here form.
WE DO NOT HAVE A SHOWROOM NOR CAN WE ACCEPT VISITORS, SORRY; INTERNET / EMAIL SALES ETC. ONLY
Our office hours are Mondays to Fridays 08:30 to 17:00, and Saturdays 08:30 to 13:00 (GMT/BST). No marketing / sales / survey calls / material accepted (we hang up on cold callers); all such callers / senders must email us only and we will reply IF we are interested.
Customs
The buyer is responsible for ensuring they are legally able to import / receive whatever they buy from us. A good reference for this is the Universal Postal Union Restrictions By Country page; simply look for the country you are resident in and check Section XIX / Chapter 93 which covers arms under that country. We do not take any responsibility for this; we only take responsibility for (guarantee) clearing outbound UK / EU customs. Some countries allow antique / collector’s edged weapons but only with a import permit; it is the buyer’s responsibility to check.
Outside the UK: Buyers have the responsibility of checking with their domestic Customs authority to determine if the item they are interested in is permitted / requires an import permit or not. None of our items require an export license because they fall under the financial thresholds set by EC Regulation 3911/92 which governs antiques and in particular which items can be considered restricted “cultural goods”.
